o 

071 

413 


SEPTEMBER  1915 


No.  7 


ffulpti 


\  JEWISH  CONFERENCE 
^      CONGRESS: 

WHICH  AND  WHY? 


BY 


STEPHEN   S.   WISE 


JLISHED    MONTHLY    FOR    THE    FREE    SYNAGOGUE 
BY  BLOCH  MJBUSHING  CO..  40  EAST  14th  ST.,  NEW  YORK 


SINGLE  COPY  I0c. 


NEX 


A  Sbwfelj  (Eanfmnr? 
nr  (£0ttgr?00: 

Wljg? 


The  matter  of  a  Jewish  Conference  or  Congress 
is  not  one  that  has  heretofore  been  unknown  within 
the  life  of  Israel.  He  little  understands  the 
breadth  and  depth  of  the  currents  of  Jewish  life, 
who  imagines  that  the  movement  in  behalf  of  a  truly 
democratic  organization  of  Israel  has  been  artifi- 
cially stimulated  or  has,  in  the  unhappy  phrase  of 
them  that  do  not  know,  been  exploited  in  further- 
ance of  a  particular  policy  or  faction. 

The  Jewish  Congress  movement  is  as  far  from 
being  new  as  it  is  from  being  stimulated.  The 
movement  has  sprung  out  of  the  soul  of  the  people 
and  is  not  "of  today  nor  yet  of  yesterday."  For 
years  the  tendency  has  been  developing,  though  it 
be  true  that  another  decade  or  even  generation 
might  have  passed  before  the  movement  would 
have  gained  sufficient  momentum  to  have  reached 
its  present  status  of  expression,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  war  with  all  its  tidal  effects  upon  life.  When 
after  decades  the  history  of  the  entire  movement  will 
be  written,  it  will  be  seen,  I  venture  to  prophecy, 
that  they,  who  are  now  falsely  charged  with  having 

123 

:M 


124  FREE   SYNAGOGUE   PULPIT. 

fostered  agitation  and  engendered  strife  within  Jew- 
ish ranks,  have  exercised  a  finely  restraining  in- 
fluence upon  the  masses,  stirred  as  never  before  by 
a  deep  interest  in  the  outcome  of  the  present  war 
as  it  is  for  good  or  evil  to  affect  the  fortunes  of 
Israel. 

Little  do  they  understand  the  spirit  of  Israel, 
poorly  in  truth  are  they  able  to  encompass  what 
might  be  styled  Jewish  psychology,  who  delude 
themselves  with  the  imagining  that  this  genuine  and 
deep-felt  movement  is  nothing  more  than  a  passing 
gust,  that  after  a  while  the  newly  awakened  energy 
will  have  spent  itself  and  again  leave  things  as  chaotic 
and  unorganized  as  they  were  before.  Nor  is  such 
division  as  seems  to  have  come  to  pass  in  the  life 
of  Israel  wholly  undesirable  as  long  as  the  differ- 
ences be  held  upon  a  high  and  impersonal  plane. 
As  long  as  acrimony  have  no  part  in  the  division, 
it  cannot  be  unwholesome  frankly  and  freely  to 
consider  certain  fundamental  differences  that  have 
come  to  light  with  respect  to  the  meeting  of  Jewish 
problems  within  and  without  American  Israel.  Bet- 
ter almost  the  heat  of  strife  than  the  ice  of  indiffer- 
ence, better  it  might  almost  be  said  honest  blunder- 
ing and  mistakes  than  the  unimpeachable  precision 
of  the  undertaker. 

Surely  it  should  not  be  necessary  to  point  out 
that  none  save  the  most  compelling  of  reasons  could 
have  moved  any  group  of  loyal  Jews  in  these  days 
even  to  seem  to  lend  themselves  to  the  spirit  of 
divisiveness  at  a  time  when  unity  of  purpose  and 
action  is  imperatively  needed  if  great  Jewish  in- 
terests are  greatly  to  be  served.  It  is  in  truth  in 


A  JEWISH  CONFERENCE  OR  CONGRESS?     125 

the  very  interest  of  the  unity,  which  seems  threat- 
ened for  a  moment  only  that  it  may  be  conserved  for 
all  the  future,  that  we  lift  up  our  voices,  knowing 
that  if  the  spirit  that  is  now  dominant  among  us 
remain  unchallenged  the  very  soul  of  Israel  will  be 
menaced. 

The  demand  for  a  Jewish  Congress  is  impersonal 
and  objective.  The  personal  emphasis  is  imported 
into  the  treatment  of  the  question  by  those  who 
act  as  if  their  personal  domains  were  being  invaded, 
as  if  some  rashly  venturesome  intruder  were  violat- 
ing the  sanctity  of  their  private  possessions.  It  is 
our  duty  to  point  out  that  we  who  believe  that  the 
summoning  of  a  Jewish  Congress  is  the  next  step  in 
the  conduct  of  Jewish  affairs,  have  no  personal  quar- 
rel with  them  from  whom  we  have  found  ourselves 
under  the  regrettable  necessity  of  differing  funda- 
mentally. We  have  the  utmost  respect  for  their 
judgment  and  their  good-will  and  we  mean  to  con- 
tinue to  respect  them  as  long  as  they  will  suffer 
us  so  to  do.  But  one  cannot  help  deploring  the 
spirit  of  resentment  which  has  met  the  efforts  of 
those  men,  who  have  sought  earnestly  and  for  the 
first  time  to  effect  a  democratic  organization  of  the 
Jewish  people  in  this  land.  The  very  resentment  of 
the  attempt  of  the  masses  to  assume  the  control  of 
their  own  affairs  is  proof  of  the  anti-democratic 
spirit  that  has  come  over  those  good  men,  who  do 
not  seem  to  understand,  let  alone  to  share,  the  pass- 
ion of  a  people  to  direct  their  own  affairs. 

No  one,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  questioned  either 
the  integrity  or  the  competence  of  the  men  who  by 
the  accident  of  fortune  or  by  their  own  will  or  be- 


126  FREE   SYNAGOGUE    PULPIT. 

cause,  at  best,  of  record  of  service,  stand  out  as 
the  leaders  of  Israel.  "  Nor  am  I  unmindful  of  the 
fact  that  the  servants  of  these  gentlemen,  scribbling 
in  an  hired  press  or  screeching  in  some  just  as  truly 
hired  pulpits,  will  cry  out  against  any  man  who 
dares  to  speak  the  truth,  however  objectively, 
touching  the  mighty.  It  is  time  that  our  leaders 
and  all  men  come  to  understand  the  difference  be- 
tween personal  attack  on  the. one  hand  to  which 
none  of  us  has  stooped  and  impersonal,  objective 
criticism.  One  were  tempted  to  insist  that  democ- 
racy rests  upon  criticism  if  one  could  bring  one's 
self  to  believe  that  the  utterance  of  this  truth  would 
lead  to  a  less  inhospitable  attitude  toward  criticism. 

Touching  the  men  bitterly  opposed  to  the  con- 
vening of  a  representative  Jewish  assembly  be  it 
said  again  that  neither  their  benevolence  of  spirit 
nor  their  wisdom  of  action  has  been  called  into 
question.  We  grant  the  integrity  of  their  purpose 
and  the  competence  of  their  service,  but  we  insist 
that,  however  well-meaning  and  admirable  they  may 
be,  no  small,  self-chosen  group  of  men  possesses 
the  right  to  think  and  speak  and  act  for  multitudes, 
whose  express  mandate  they  do  not  bear  nor  have 
even  sought  to  obtain. 

Nothing  could  be  more  unjust  than  to  seek  to 
convey  the  impression,  as  has  been  done,  that  the 
Congress-Conference  dispute  is  a  quarrel  of  a  single 
man  with  a  group  of  men  whose  leadership  of  Amer- 
ican Israel  he  is  seeking  to  wrest  from  their  hands. 
The  question  that  faces  American  Israel  would 
have  been  raised  if  this  figure  had  never  been.  Hap- 
pily, however,  in  the  revolt  of  the  masses  against 


A  JEWISH  CONFERENCE  OR  CONGRESS?     127 

Jewish  bureaucracy,  against  the  un-Jewish  spirit 
of  feudalism,  against  what  Pfofessor  Horace  Kallen 
has  rightly  called  Jewish  mediaevalism,  we  follow 
the  inspiring  leadership  of  one,  who  embodies  with- 
in his  personality  much  that  is  finest  in  Israel  and 
as  much  more  that  is  finest  in  Americanism. 

The  truth  is  that  the  men  who  have  been  good 
enough  to  charge  themselves  with  the  personal 
conduct  of  American  Jewish  affairs  are,  I  hope  for 
their  own  sake,  big  enough  to  be  forbearing  with 
respect  to  that  which  is  at  worst  nothing  more 
than  a  question  respecting  the  adequacy  of  any 
group  of  men  to  serve  as  the  unchallenged  masters 
of  Israel.  These  men  rightly  understand  that  the 
fundamental  question  revolves  around  the  right  of 
any  self-chosen  group  of  men,  however  admirable, 
to  act  for  multitudes  without  mandate  on  the  one 
hand  and  without  even  having  taken  counsel  with 
them  on  the  other.  These  men  rightly  understand 
that  there  is  a  mighty  issue  at  stake  in  this  critical 
hour,  which  at  last  finds  the  people  resolved  to  rise 
to  the  dignity  of  self-mastery  and  self-determina- 
tion. The  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  old  regime 
in  American  Israel  of  undisputed  and  autocratic 
control  of  the  few  over  the  affairs  of  multitudes  is 
at  hand. 

Much  of  the  evil  of  the  present  regime  in  Amer- 
ican Israel  is  due  to  the  circumstance  tolerated  no- 
where else  and  by  no  other  people  that  our  philan- 
thropists are  our  statesmen  and  our  statesmen  are 
our  philanthropists.  We  have  too  little  statesman- 
ship in  our  philanthropy  and  we  have  too  much 
pseudo-philanthropy  in  our  statesmanship.  A  des- 


128  FREE   SYNAGOGUE   PULPIT. 

potism  is  not  less  intolerable  because  it  is  temp- 
ered and  moderated  by  benevolence  or  shall  we  not 
rather  say  that  we  are  absolutely  intolerant  of  des- 
potism plus  a  temperate  and  tepid  benevolence. 
It  may  be  difficult  for  some  men  to  understand,  but 
it  is  none  the  less  true,  that  the  life  of  a  people  can- 
not be  organized  upon  the  basis  of  the  methods  of 
charity  nor  yet  in  the  spirit  of  philanthropy,  how- 
ever real  and  vast.  Men  may  be  the  most  generous 
of  philanthropists  or  the  most  competent  of  al- 
moners, still  are  we  as  a  people  unwilling  to  suffer 
our  fortunes  and  our  destinies  to  be  decided  by 
any  group  of  men  who  will  not  meet  nor  deign  to 
hold  counsel  with  the  people  whom  they  purport 
to  represent. 

The  question  of  Conference  or  Congress  is  far 
from  being  academic  in  character.  Consistently 
enough  they  who  oppose  the  summoning  of  a  Jew- 
ish Congress  are  prepared  to  repeat  the  very  grave 
mistake  of  one  year  ago  when  a  conference  was 
called  out  of  which  grew  the  American  Jewish  Re- 
lief Committee,  which  is  but  another  name  for  the 
American  Jewish  Committee.  This  conference  was 
called  without  having  previously  invited  the  co-op- 
eration of  other  important  nation-wide  Jewish  bo- 
dies which,  unlike  the  American  Jewish  Committee. 
are  democratically  chosen  and  completely  repre- 
sentative in  respect  of  their  leadership. 

No  hair-splitting  can  set  this  matter  right  and 
no  hired  scribblers,  however  vociferous  their  de- 
fence and  voluble  their  vituperation,  can  justify  the 
arbitrary  action  of  one  year  ago,  the  result  of  which 
has  been  that  little  more  than  one  million  dollars 


A  JEWISH   CONFERENCE  OR  CONGRESS?     129 

has  been  secured  for  the  war  sufferers  instead  of  a 
sum  five  or  ten  times  as  large  which  would,  in  my 
own  judgment,  have  been  secured  if  from  the  be- 
ginning the  matter  had  been  taken  in  hand  not  by 
one  limited,  self-chosen  group  but  had  been  made 
through  the  leadership  and  with  the  co-operation  of 
all  the  national  Jewish  bodies,  the  affair  of  all  Amer- 
ican Israel.  Nor  was  there  any  such  generosity  on 
the  part  of  the  self-named  leaders  as  served  to  stim- 
ulate and  to  compel  giving  upon  an  adequate  scale. 
In  the  field  of  charity,  a  want  of  zeal  and  industry 
in  leadership  is  excusable  only  upon  the  condition, 
rarely  enough  met,  that  personal  responsibility  be 
assumed  for  tlie  results  which  elsewise  these  quali- 
ties alone  can  ensure. 

The  question  is  whether  American  Israel  is  to  be 
Jewish  and  American  or  whether,  unworthy  alike 
of  its  ancient  heritage  and  its  newly  acquired  spirit, 
it  is  to  be  un-Jewish  and  un-American.  For  un- 
Jewish  it  is  to  be  distrustful  and  even  fearful  of  the 
many;  un-American  it  is  to  dread  to  summon  the 
collective  spirit  of  a  people  to  an  attitude  of  high 
self-reliance.  Putting  it  somewhat  differently,  it  is 
alike  a  Jewish  issue  and  an  American  issue  which  is 
at  stake.  One  of  the  first  articles  of  the  Jewish 
faith  is  not  to  surrender  one's  judgment  even  to 
princes  and  an  equally  binding  precept  upon  the 
soul  of  Israel  it  has  ever  been  not  to  separate  one's 
self  from  nor  to  be  fearful  of  the  mass  of  the  people. 

In  one  word,  the  Jewish  masses  are  determined 
at  all  costs  to  be  the  masters  of  their  own  fate.  The 
Jewish  people  which  in  a  very  high  sense  has  found 
itself,  which  has  suffered  an  awakening  within  the 


130  FREE    SYNAGOGUE    PULPIT. 

past  decades,  the  soul  of  which  has  verily  been 
transfigured  by  its  newly  gained  spirit  of  self-de- 
termination, is  no  longer  satisfied  to  beg  at  the  doors 
of  parliaments  or  the  gates  of  palaces.  Being  too 
proud  to  beg  at  the  doors  of  strangers,  least  of  all 
will  it  stoop  to  have  its  fate  moulded  by  the  will 
of  any  number  of  men  unless  these  give  proof  that 
they  are  at  one  with  it,  unless  these  have  shared  in 
the  resurrection  of  Israel's  spirit. 

If  there  be  any  question  in  the  minds  of  men 
with  respect  to  the  methods  employed  by  those  who 
have  taken  it  upon  themselves  to  call  a  Conference 
rather  than  a  Congress,  it  needs  but  be  pointed  out 
that  a  small  committee,  which  admits  that  it  is  self- 
constituted,  has  called  a  Conference  expected  to 
prove  representative  of  American  Israel.  This  Con- 
ference has  been  called  upon  the  following  terms 
and  under  the  following  conditions.  A  still  smaller 
group  named  by  a  small,  self-appointed  body  has 
predetermined  what  bodies  should  be  invited  to  send 
representatives  to  the  Conference,  so  that  it  has  as- 
sumed the  power  of  naming  the  membership  of  the 
Conference.  In  the  next  place,  it  predetermined 
what  should  be  the  subjects  to  be  considered  at 
such  a  Conference,  which  involves  an  inhibition  with 
respect  to  any  other  subject  which  those  in  attend- 
ance at  the  Conference  might  wish  to  submit  to  its 
consideration.  In  the  third  place,  it  predetermined 
that  the  proceedings  of  the  Conference  should  be 
secret  in  character,  which  decision, — and  this  is  the 
least  of  the  resultant  disadvantages, — denies  to 
American  Israel  any  control  over  the  character  of 
the  proceedings. 


A  JEWISH   CONFERENCE  OR  CONGRESS?     131 

The  spirit  of  the  leaders  who  have  planned  the 
Washington  Conference  was  frankly  expressed  by 
one  of  their  representatives  one  year  ago  when,  in 
reply  to  a  protest  touching  the  undemocratic  char- 
acter of  a  certain  proposal,  he  declared  in  substance 
that  it  was  immaterial  whether  the  character  of  the 
proceedings  seemed  despotic  or  not  as  long  as  the 
thing  had  to  be  done  and  done  quickly.  And  this 
observation  was  made  admittedly  with  the  best  of 
motives,  in  ignorance  of  the  truth  that  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  have  things  worth  while  done  by  the  masses 
of  the  people  if  undemocratic  and  even  despotic 
methods  are  imposed  upon  them. 

It  may  well  be  urged  that  there  are  serious 
difficulties  which  are  involved  in  such  an  undertak- 
ing as  the  organizing  of  the  widely  scattered  ele- 
ments and  the  widely  differing  factions  of  American 
Israel.  We  are  not  unmindful  of  the  difficulties 
which  are  bound  up  with  any  attempt  to  set  in  mo- 
tion the  machinery  out  of  which  is  to  come  a  truly 
and  completely  democratic  Congress.  We  would 
neither  underrate  nor  understate  these  difficulties, 
but  we  do  the  gentlemen  who  assume  them  to  be 
insuperable  the  honor  of  believing  that  the  task 
would  not  be  beyond  their  powers  if  but  it  were 
not  counter  to  their  will.  Insuperable  alone  is  their 
reluctance  to  meet  the  difficulties  which,  though 
heavy,  are  much  exaggerated  in  the  interest  of  a 
policy  they  seem  to  serve. 

The  citing  of  the  difficulties  which  are  clearly 
bound  up  with  the  massive  task  of  organizing 
American  Israel  should  not  blind  us  to  the  circum- 
stance that  Conference  and  Congress  respectively 


132  FREE   SYNAGOGUE    PULPIT. 

represent  two  ideals  utterly  at  variance  though,  it 
may  be  hoped,  not  irreconcilable.  Neither  Confer- 
ence nor  Congress  is  an  end  in  itself,  each  being 
sought  as  means  alone.  The  differences  which  have 
arisen  between  the  advocates  of  the  Congress  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  Conference  on  the  other  are  not 
bound  up  with  opinions  touching  machinery  or 
agencies.  If,  after  they  have  been  properly  and 
adequately  consulted,  the  people  should  determine 
that  a  Conference,  however  small  numerically. 
Would  suffice  for  the  consideration  of  Jewish  ques- 
tions on  their  behalf,  in  the  spirit  of  democracy  we 
would  bow  to  that  will. 

The  Congress  movement/  does  not  revolve  around 
questions  of  policy  but  of  polity,  not  of  method  but 
of  matter,  not  of  machinery  but  of  principles.  In 
truth  of  principle,  for  deep  and  irrepealable  princi- 
ples are  at  stake  which  we  believe  it  would  be  false 
on  our  part  to  the  spirit  of  Israel  and  America  to 
suffer  to  be  abated  even  for  a  moment!  Of  princi- 
ple in  truth,  for  the  Jewish  Congress  movement  ex- 
presses in  unmistakable  terms  the  will  of  the  Jew- 
ish people  to  suffer  no  group  of  men  whom  they 
have  not  named  to  determine,  it  may  be  for  gener- 
ations, the  content  of  Jewish  destiny ! 

The  Jewish  Congress  movement  places  itself 
on  record  as  unalterably  opposed  to  the  methods  of 
secrecy  determined  upon  for  the  Washington  Con- 
ference. Privileges  must  be  sought  in  secret :  rights 
may  be  demanded  in  the  open.  We  have  nothing  to 
conceal  either  from  ourselves  or  from  the  peoples 
of  the  earth,  nor  can  wide  and  popular  support, 
which  surely  is  indispensable,  be  secured  for  any 


A  JEWISH   CONFERENCE  OR  CONGRESS?     133 

undertakings  on  behalf  of  the  people  as  long  as  these 
are  made  to  feel  that  they  are  not  trusted  by  their 
self-appofnted  elders.  As  for  the  peril  of  the  un- 
wisdom and  the  blundering  which  are  said  to  be 
certain  to  result  from  a  public  Congress,  I  would  say 
that  not  even  the  privilege  of  unwisdom  and  folly 
ought  to  be  monopolized  by  a  self-elected  few. 

Enlightened  thinkers  in  all  warring  and  even 
neutral  lands  are  contending  as  never  before  for 
the  open  and  democratic  control  of  their  own  affairs, 
foreign  as  well  as  domestic,  international  as  well  as 
intranational.  Safe  it  is  to  predicate  that  we  shall 
not  have  an  end  of  thrice-damned  war  until  the 
reign  of  the  secret  conduct  of  international  affairs 
has  been  brought  to  an  end.  Why,  then,  when  the 
peoples  of  earth  are  insisting  upon  a  completely 
democratic  control  of  their  affairs,  which  cannot  be 
until  the  reign  of  secret  diplomatic  negotiations  is 
ended,  are  we  to  proclaim  that  we  are  believers  in 
the  policy  of  secrecy?  We  should  have  none  of  it 
in  Jewish  affairs  because  Jewish  affairs  can  bear 
the  light  of  day.  We  ask  for  no  rights  of  which  the 
world  may  not  know :  we  know  of  no  right  which 
we  ought  not  frankly  and  openly  ask  of  the  nations 
if  by  them  it  is  of  right  to  be  accorded  to  us. 

They  who  imagine  that  a  privately  called,  secret- 
ly held  Conference  will  be  adequately  representative 
of  the  common  will  and  united  purpose  of  the  Jew- 
ish people  must  needs  remember  that  Israel  may 
sin  against  itself  if  it  will  to  omit  to  do  the  things 
needed  to  safeguard  our  rights,  but  no  man  or  men. 
though  ready  to  serve  as  trustees  and  guardians 
for  Israel,  may  do  these  things  or  omit  to  do  them 


134  FREE   SYNAGOGUE    PULPIT. 

without  Israel's  assent.  In  other  words,  Israel  may 
if  it  will  commit  moral  and  spiritual  suicide  but  no 
one,  however  powerful  or  circumstanced  or  privi- 
leged, has  the  right  at  this  time  of  all  times  in  Jew- 
ish history  to  assume  an  attitude  of  despotic  con- 
trol, however  benevolent,  over  the  fortunes  of  an 
entire  people. 

Let  us  remember,  too,  the  year  and  the  con- 
juncture of  circumstances.  We  are  far  removed 
from  1878,  the  year  of  the  last  great  international 
Congress.  We  have  learned  much  in  the  nearly 
forty  years  that  have  passed,  and  we  have  suffered 
much.  Nor  should  we  as  a  people  be  satisfied  with 
such  an  issue  of  the  prospective  peace  negotiations 
as  rejoiced  the  hearts  of  our  fathers  in  1878.  Thus 
in  the  despite  of  much  that  is  infinitely  saddening, 
the  Russian  people  have  gone  forward  with  unpre- 
cedented stride  and,  moreover  there  are  indisput- 
able grounds  for  insistence  upon  equality  of  rights 
for  the  Jewish  people  throughout  Russia.  For  one 
thing,  there  has  been  the  astonishing  political  ad- 
vance of  the  Empire  though  this  has  been  achieved 
in  the  very  teeth  of  bureaucratic  opposition.  Again, 
since  the  beginning  of  the  Great  War,  the  Jew  has 
served  the  Russian  Empire  in  its  armies  and  this 
heroic  service  has  come  from  a  people  from  whom 
the  Russian  government  deserved  little  save  un- 
forbearing  hatred.  Again,  it  should  be  made  to  tell 
in  behalf  of  Israel's  fortunes  that  Russia  and  her 
Western  allies  are  purporting  to  wage  war  on  be- 
half of  the  rights  of  the  lesser  peoples  and  nationali- 
ties. Finally,  the  allied  powers  may,  and  if  needs  be, 
must  bring  resistless  pressure  to  bear  upon  the  Rus- 


A  JEWISH   CONFERENCE  OR  CONGRESS?     135 

sian  government  in  the  event  of  its  failure  willingly 
to  accord  complete  rights  to  its  Jewish  people.  In 
Roumania,  too,  alone  of  the  Balkan  States,  Israel  has 
been  ruthlessly  betrayed  since  Disraeli  pleaded  on 
behalf  of  his  people  at  Berlin,  and  we  are  resolved 
that  insofar  as  in  us  lies  there  shall  be  no  repetition 
of  this  cruel  betrayal  of  a  people's  hopes  and  a  peo- 
ple's rights. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  gentlemen  who  advo- 
cate that  a  Conference  rather  than  a  Congress  be 
held,  imagining  that  such  a  Conference  would  be 
adequately  representative  of  the  common  will  and 
united  purpose  of  the  Jewish  people,  that  those  gen- 
tlemen who  are  willing  to  assume  the  responsibility 
of  trusteeship  for  Israel  will  or  would  safeguard 
every  interest  which  we  deem  precious,  but  they 
are  not  free  to  do  so,  neither  are  they  free  to  omit 
to  do  so  unless  they  rest  under  the  unequivocal 
command  of  the  Jewish  communities  of  America. 

Touching  the  question  of  the  Jewish  resettle- 
ment of  Asiatic  Turkey  or  Palestine,  Israel  must 
speak  for  itself  and  none  can  speak  for  it  save  with 
its  express  mandate  and  authority.  We  shall  not 
be  satisfied  to  have  an  end  of  the  long-continuing 
reign  of  curtailment  of  privilege  in  Palestine.  By 
the  token  of  forty  years  of  the  sweat  of  toil  and 
the  blood  of  consecration,  the  Jews  of  the  world  may 
and  of  right  ought  to  demand  that  which  Turkey 
knows  we  have  sought  for  a  generation  and  more, 
for  we  have  sought  it  frankly  that  all  men  might 
know, — namely,  that  the  growing  dominance  of 
Jewish  life  in  Palestine  be  acknowledged  and  ac- 
cepted not  only  by  the  government  sovereign  in 


136  FREE   SYNAGOGUE   PULPIT. 

Asiatic  Turkey  but  by  all  the  nations  of  earth.  It 
is  known  of  men  that  we  do  not  seek  more  than  our 
lawful  rights  in  Palestine,  but  we  believe  that  those 
lawful  rights  within  Palestine  must,  with  perfect 
loyalty  to  any  government  or  governments  which 
are  hereafter  to  control  its  destinies,  include  the 
autonomy  of  the  Jewish  resettlement.  Moreover, 
this  local  or  provincial  autonomy  must  be  secured 
and  safeguarded  irrespective  of  the  circumstance 
that  some  of  us  believe  that  Palestine  is  not  only 
the  most  desirable  door  of  refuge  through  which 
Jewish  exiles  can  enter  but  potentially  the  centre  of 
such  a  renascence  of  the  Jewish  spirit  as  may  under 
God  give  rebirth  to  all  the  House  of  Israel. 

A  deep  and  solemn  issue  is  at  stake.  The  ques- 
tion is  whether  Jewish  problems  are  to  be  con- 
sidered by  American  Jews  at  a  Conference  under 
the  terms  already  mentioned  or  whether  these  prob- 
lems are  to  be  met  at  a  Congress  democratically 
chosen  and  truly  representative  and  faced  in  such  a 
spirit  withal  as  would  represent  the  soul  of  Israel. 
If  a  small,  self-appointed  group  do  not  trust  the 
people  sufficiently  to  risk  summoning  their  repre- 
sentatives together  in  earnest  and  solemn  confer- 
ence, who  will  dare  maintain  that  their  deliberations 
and  actions,  however  wise  and  well-wishing,  will 
represent  the  purpose  of  the  people. 

It  has  truly  been  said  of  them  who  seem  to 
shrink  in  terror  from  the  summoning  of  a  Jewish 
Congress  that  they  know  all  of  Israel  save  Israel's 
soul.  They  know  that  the  Jew  has  a  body  and  they 
are  willing  to  feed  and  to  clothe  it.  But  are  they 
not  in  danger  of  forgetting  that  the  Jew  is  some- 


A  JEWISH  CONFERENCE  OR  CONGRESS?     137 

thing  more?  Do  they  remember  that  he  who  sets 
himself  up  as  a  leader  in  Israel  dare  not  forget  that 
the  Jew  is  a  soul,  that  this  soul  must  be  reckoned 
with  and  that  truly  great  alone  in  Israel  is  Israel's 
soul.  To  them  that  do  not  understand  what  mighty 
issues  are  involved  it  is  a  duty  to  point  out  that 
nothing  in  a  generation,  perhaps  in  generations,  has 
been  a  happier  omen  of  the  dawning  of  a  new  day 
for  Israel  than  the  battle  within  the  Holy  Land  less 
than  two  years  ago  against,  I  had  almost  said,  the 
powers  and  principalities  on  behalf  of  the  principle 
of  Jewish  self-reverence,  which  battle  has  passed 
into  Jewish  history  under  the  name  of  the  Hebrew 
Language  dispute. 

The  demand  of  the  American  Jew  for  a  Jew- 
ish Congress  is  another  sign  that  the  ghetto  no 
longer  rules  the  soul  of  the  Jewish  masses.  Is- 
rael, alas,  did  not  lose  the  habit  of  the  ghetto  when 
the  walls  of  brick  and  stone  were  razed  to  the 
ground.  The  temper  of  the  ghetto  still  abides  in 
the  soul  of  many  Jews  who  fancy  themselves  eman- 
cipated, for  many  so-called  emancipated  Jews  are 
voluntary  ghettoites.  Too  many  Hofjuden  are  noth- 
ing more  than  half-Juden.  They  have  emancipated 
themselves  from  rather  than  unto  perfect  freedom. 

Earnestly  do  I  appeal  to  my  fellow-Jews  for  a 
reconsideration  of  the  question,  which  is  not  yet 
closed.  Let  them  remember  that  it  is  better  to  fall 
short  or  to  fail  in  striving  for  the  highest,  as  said 
Cavour,  than  to  be  content  with  the  corroding  pros- 
perity of  a  system  admittedly  inferior.  Let  them 
that  urge  the  secret  sessions  of  a  few  rather  than 
the  open  counsel  of  the  many  remember  that  "better 


138  FREE   SYNAGOGUE   PULPIT. 

the  worst  of  chambers  than  the  best  of  ante- 
chambers." 

It  is  not  a  sign  of  greatness  but  a  token  of  little- 
ness, it  is  not  a  sign  of  vision  but  a  token  of  vul- 
garity to  insist  upon  the  superimposition  of  one's 
own  will  upon  a  whole  community.  But  the  arro- 
gance of  the  few  is  a  little  thing  by  the  side  of  the 
supineness  of  the  many  if  the  many  suffer  them- 
selves to  lapse  into  the  degradation  of  uncomplain- 
ing and  unchallenging  acquiescence  in  the  will  of 
the  few.  To  these  gentlemen  who  are  opposed  to  a 
Jewish  Congress,  I  would  say  that  if  they  love  Israel 
as  I  believe  they  do,  if  they  would  truly  serve  Israel, 
as  I  am  persuaded  that  they  would,  let  them  rejoice 
in  the  new  token  of  Israel's  reborn  strength  that 
comes  to  light  in  the  demand  of  the  people  that  they 
be  heard  in  the  determining  of  their  own  destinies. 

For  a  generation,  the  older  Jewish  settlers  in 
America  have  urged  the  newer  that  they  must  take 
their  affairs  into  their  own  hands,  that  they  must 
cease  to  be/ dependent  upon  the  purse  or  the  judg- 
ment or  the  will  of  others,  that,  by  the  side  of  the 
earlier  groups,  they,  too,  must  become  self-determin- 
ing units  in  the  body  of  Israel.  The  hour  is  come  to 
test  the  genuineness  of  the  appeal  of  decades  to  the 
people  to  express  themselves,  to  rule  themselves, 
to  serve  themselves.  If  God  wishes  to  save  Israel, 
He  will  save  Israel  with  or  without  our  help.  But 
let  us  strive  with  all  wisdom  and  all  the  light  that 
God  gives  us  to  the  end  that  we  may  be  of  them 
that  help  not  hinder  God,  that  we  may  be  of  them 
that  help  not  hinder  the  will  of  Israel  to  be  greatly 
free  and  nobly  self-determining. 


158  00745  2971 


Fire   Prevention   Reminder 

ALL  fires  are  small  at  the   start,  but  extend  with  great  rapidity. 
A  delay  of  a  minute  in  extinguishing  a  fire  has  caused  disaster. 
The  installation  of  approved  fire  extinguishers,  fire  hooks,   and  fire  axes 
in  your  premises,  promptly^-sed  in  case  of  emergency  will  prevent 
a  fire  from  spreading.  V 

"An  ounce  of  preven  \  n  is  worth  a  pound  of  cure" 


SYSTEM 

A  fire  is  guaranteed    to    be  detected    within   One    Minute,  by  One  Detector 
for  each  One  Thousand  sq.  ft.  of  floor  area. 

The  Croker  National  Fire  Prevention  Engineering  Co, 


1270   BROADWAY 


Phone,  Madison  Sq.  77-78 


NEW  YORK 


THE  LEWISOHN  LECTURES  FOR  191 


By  HARRY  S.  LEWIS,  M.  A. 


Six  Lectures  delivered  under  the  auspices  of  the  Free 
Synagogue  and  the  Eastern  Conference  of  Reform  Rabbis 

CLOTH,  160  PAGES,  $1.00 


Bloch    Publishing    Co.,    40  East   14th  Street,  Nv 


STACI 


